Jakarta – Almost 20.1-million ha, or about half the 40-million ha of forests in Indonesia, have been damaged by fires and farming, Forestry and Plantations Minister Nur Mahmudi Ismail has said.

This includes 5.9-million ha of what is supposed to be protected forests, he said, adding that the damage was cause not just by logging firms and plantations, but by nomadic farmers as well, the Indonesian Observer newspaper reported yesterday.

Speaking during a visit to the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar on Thursday, he said that if damaged forests could not be rehabilitated, the affected areas should be converted into arable farming land. The government had, for example, allocated 10 billion rupiah (S$1.9 million) for the rehabilitation of arid land in South Sulawesi.

His comments came in the wake of a report by the World Resources Institute's report on Indonesia which said that forest fires will continue to occur here until the government makes drastic changes in its management of the remaining tropical forests.